Not many people do stone - maybe it's because they, too, thought the price was over $10,000 a hood. Is there anything special I need to be aware of? Anyone with a stone hood, can you give any tips, words of advice, warnings?

My kitchen will be primarily DIY. My husband and a local handyman will be doing the cabinet installation. I'm nervous about them hanging such a heavy object. How do these things mount anyway?

I'd appreciate any words of advice or wisdom ya'll can pass on! Thanks.

INSTALLATION
It had to be pinned together and mounted in sections over a 3 day period. Each section has to mounted and cemented in place and dried before the next section.

SUPPORT
There also needs to be adequate support behind the wall and under the floor because it weighs 800 pounds. I had to sister studs together to form 6 inch wide supports for the hood to hand from. Plus, the hood has to be tilted slightly up in front so the weight was directed back. Luckily, I had a main support beam under this wall but the mason told me some walls will require extra support under the floor.

MAINTENANCE
The stone is very porous too. It will need to cure several weeks before sealing it. While I was waiting for it to cure before I sealed it, I spilled a pot of coffee on the corbel and stained it. A muriatic acid wash whitens and cleans it but the fumes alone are enough to etch stainless steel so I was afraid to ruin my stainless appliances. I like the idea of a hood that looks used so I will let it age gracefully and naturally, stains and all.

PRICE
I originally fell in love with a baroque copper hood which was priced at $6000. I wasn't willing to pay that much so I found the stone one for $3000, delivered. I thought it was a better deal and I love the look of them. After install and paying for the liner, the whole thing came to $5700. I could have gotten the copper one and installed it myself in a day. There is no way I could have installed this hood.

I hope this information helps you. Although the hoods are certainly beautiful, there are more things to consider than a wood or metal hood. I am not sure if I will choose this in my next house. Here is an older picture of my hood but you get the idea. My backsplash is not in yet. It took me 4 months to choose it and it should be delivered before the holidays.

Your kitchen is just gorgeous and your hood was one of the one's that lead to my decision to go this route. Your hood looks larger than the one I've been looking at. If mine is slightly smaller, lighter and doesn't have corbels that come to the countertop - is this DIY doable, of MUST I call a mason? How much of the $5700 was simply installation?

I can't thank you enough for your feedback and for letting me know I have some major thinking ahead and planning to do. No to mention, maybe saving for a mason!

Find out the weight of the hood first. Maybe the wall mount ones are lighter. My company prided itself on the parts being hollow but I have no idea what they are talking about. Each piece seemed solid to me. The top part near the ceiling are not solid-they are curved pieces about 2 inches thick. Now that I have watched the whole process and learned about masonry-I could probably tackle a smaller one. I am not sure. My husband and I had enough trouble carrying the mantle piece into the house-let alone lifting it over our heads.

Each of the pieces are connected with pins that were cemented into place before installing it. It was pretty time intensive. The hood came with an installation DVD too. I am sure your company has installion specs that are used. One helpful tip...I told the company that I needed a 60 inch hood from countertop to ceiling. They didn't account for the 4 quarter inch grout lines of the 4 layers to the ceiling. This caused the crown molding to be 1 inch too tall. The mason had to trim 1 inch off. Make sure these are accounted for. IMO, that was the responsibility of the hood company. It made the mason really mad. He was used to hoods being no more than 1/32 inch off, not a whole inch. If you decide to have a mason do it-try to find one that has done it before. Otherwise you might as well do it yourself. My guy had done at least 20 hoods, some weighing 10,000 pounds. I felt pretty secure with his expertise.

Thanks!
Renee

When I ordered it, I had to tell them the height from countertop to ceiling on each side of the range and the center point too. Plus I had to tell them distance from cooktop to bottom edge of the hood. Mine sit on the counter so the numbers had to be really close. You would need to decide your mounting height above the cooking surface. This is determined by a few things...the chefs height, ventilation specs etc. Make sure you account for arches in the mantle part (if you have them). I didn't account for the arches so I had to mount my blower 3 inches over the max height in the specs. You can email me directly if you want. I learned a lot from the process so I would be glad to help.

Metastone and Eurocaststone .